handsful

Our church family group gave us a wonderful baby shower on Sunday! Our friends Anne and Jon (“life is a zoo – Anne” on my sidebar) hosted the shower at their home. I gathered all the amazing gifts on our table when we got home…

Adorable clothes! Can’t wait to see Lainey in these outfits. There is also an adorable “welcome” mini-flag with…yep, a ladybug on it!

More clothes! Plus, 2 so-soft blankets, a night-light ladybug, a stuffed ladybug, a personalized tag for the diaper bag, and an adorable hand-made ladybug bracelet for Lainey. In fact, the bracelet, tag and flannel tie blanket were all handmade by Angie :)

The most surprising gift?? Easy…our 100 Good Wishes Quilt! We were floored that our good friend, Rhonda, had already finished it! It was so emotional, seeing all those squares that I’ve collected for almost 2 years, finally made into a quilt. Take a look, it’s gorgeous…

Here is a close-up…can you see what I see?

ladybugs!! Yes, there are ladybugs embroidered all across the quilt! We adore our quilt!

Here are some more pics from the shower…

That cake was SO good! Chocolate through and through…

It was a couple’s shower, so Randy got to join in on the fun ;)

Smile, ladies!

Notice the chairs/seats here? If you look closely, you can see a clip-on highchair in the back, all the way to the left. We decided that we didn’t want a big highchair for Lainey, we’d go with the clip on that worked so well for the triplets when they were toddlers. But, there isn’t enough room on that side for 2 chairs plus the clip on. So….

Randy is busy building a bench to use on one side of the table! Marley, Payton, and Ethan will sit on the bench and Abbey will sit on the other side with Lainey. I’ve always wanted to use a bench on one side and this was the perfect time. We couldn’t find exactly what we wanted, so Randy designed this one himself, to match our table (which, we bought at a “scratch and dent” sale years ago and LOVE). Stay tuned for the final product!

His two apprentices :)

This just occurred to me today…

When we chose Lainey as the name for our daughter in China, we liked the meaning of it. It means “torch” or “bright light”. Her Chinese name is Ling Qing Qin. Qing means “clear” or “sunny”. It’s like this is meant to be or something!

Still waiting on travel approval! Hope to have it by next week (or sooner!).

Look at our Lainey! That’s almost a smile! We were overjoyed to receive updated information and new pictures from her orphanage today! Our agency received the information and sent it to us via email. We had been hoping for an update since the agency asked for one back on 11/5. Today’s email included the above picture, another close up of her lip repair, and also a photo of the hemangioma on her back….which is so tiny, it looks like a pink freckle. There was more detailed information about her cleft palate, apparently the cleft is on the left side only. We also received development information and measurements, including head and chest! Here are the details…

She can walk.

She is still on the bottle.

She has 11 teeth.

She can say “mama” and “dada” (wonder if they’ve been working on that??)

Her personality is active and extroverted, but sometimes she is a bit fussy. :)

She is closest to her caretaker.

Here are her measurements:

Weight 20.94lbs., Height 31.5in., Head 17.72 in., Chest 18.5in., Feet 4.33in.

We did a bit of comparing, and Lainey appears to be just about the same in size to Ethan at 18 months old, which means she is a little small for her age. We’ll be taking 12 and 18 month size clothes and we’re estimating her shoe size to be a 4 or 4.5.

Another big step today…we mailed off the next set of paperwork to our agency today AND sent off the paperwork/our passports to order our Visas. We hope to see TA in about 2 weeks. Until then, I have a new picture to stare at (while I pack and do all the other zillion things on my “to-do” list!)

We received the rest of the photos of Lainey that a family took for us, during their visit to the orphanage. Lainey was sleeping when they arrived, but when they asked to see Ling Qing Qin, the nanny obviously wanted our girl to be awake. Check out the progression of pictures below.

This one breaks my heart!!

Hmmm…if the girl is used to getting cookies/crackers when she cries, we have our work cut out for us!

We’re driving home from our Christmas trip to NC, and Randy’s cell phone rings. “303 area code??”, he says. “ANSWER THAT, IT’S CCAI!!!”, I calmly tell him. Turns out it was Sarah at CCAI, telling us that our LOA arrived at their office today! This is the letter from China that basically just needs our signature. CCAI will over-night it to us today…we’ll get it on Wednesday (because of the holiday) and over-night it back to them…CCAI will get it back on Thursday and over-night it to China.

She said that once they receive this form, we should receive our TA (travel approval) in 2-3 weeks. That means we SHOULD be leaving for China the 2nd or 3rd week of February. Chinese New Year is 2/7, and there is no travel during that week, which sets us back a little. BUT, it works out perfectly for us because our daughter’s 12th birthday is 2/9. We would most likely miss her birthday if CNY wasn’t in there.

So, our 2007 has ended with some wonderful news! Happy 2008 everyone!!

We received official word today from our agency that we’ve been pre-approved to adopt Lainey! This means that the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) has received and reviewed our Letter of Intent paperwork (essentially asking to adopt her, explaining how we’ll care for her, etc.) and have agreed that we can be her family. Yeah!

They will now begin the process of matching her paperwork with our dossier that we turned in August of 2006. Our agency will let us know when this happens. Another milestone down in our journey to Lainey!